Deep.

It's just a remnant from a time where authority was very different. Machiavelli would later name it "state" ("lo stato"). The right to rule by law, tradition, obligation. The king isn't just king, he has the right to be king. To question that right is to question the king. Our "western" societies and cultures are pretty much based on undermining that principle. You don't own the right to rule anymore, you're given the right to rule by a collective of individuals who own it together. It's such a different concept that if you had tried to explain it to someone living 3000 years ago (well, if they lived in cities at least), they'd probably have seen you as a madman.

This is probably why it was suddenly very handy to make God omniscient, omnipotent and all-encompassing. God as a king or a ruler wasn't good enough anymore, because we rejected those concepts onto the scrapheap of history. Now you can't question God's killing of the Egyptian firstborns, because it's part of a grand plan we can't fathom.

But it doesn't fit. The God of the OT isn't omniscient, he is surprised by people's actions. He isn't all-encompassing because he serves only one people, he isn't omnipotent because it is obvious his powers are limited. The God of the OT is pretty much a king, with whims, fancies and some very human traits. Sure he has supernatural powers, created the world (which for the authors of of Genesis would have been a very small place compared to today's universe), but still a king. Actions are bad because they displease him and since he is God that all you need to know. His plans aren't counted in billions of years, but in generations. The rules are the rules because he made them, not because they survive some logical thought experiment by a free thinker some 2500-3000 years later.

A modern God of such caliber wouldn't survive the questioning ("Why did you kill the Egyptian firstborns?!"), so he's just moved to be beyond such things. The moral values are "objective", the creation of the universe is "beyond nature", the plan is "mysterious", the evidence is "faith". And it all sorts of culminates in deism, now he isn't even known, intervening or revealed.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on Christianity here. But I have read my bible, and I think if you really want to be a Christian you must accept that God rules because he is the ruler. You answer to him because you're not. It doesn't help to put him into gaps, and nor does he really fit there. The Biblical God is a very active one.

Well, I rambled completely off-topic and forgot to write what I meant to write.

The Biblical God makes rules that has to be followed. Sure, the NT emphasizes a lot on motivation and belief (probably more than the OT), but the message is pretty clear: Acts, words and beliefs all matter for your judgment and you are accountable for all of them.

This even goes in the face of adversity and do not expect God to answer to our modern concepts of fair, he decides how it plays out. The story of Job makes that abundantly clear. Any adherent of modern theologies that makes God "fluffy" needs to read the story of Job over and over again. The Biblical God is brutal.

We can discuss back and forth exactly how that judgment takes place, but to read the Bible and think you get free passes for anything you do, say or believe has to be right on the top of the hopeful-scale. Sure, you can ask forgiveness in the NT sense, but you don't need a very thorough analysis of the Biblical God to understand that you better not plan to get away with anything.

Man does not and never has reincarnated as an animal. To bring the "dung beetle" into issue is an intellectual dismissive foray into ignorance . Reincarnation and karma is all about Man, or he who dies, for no other dies save Man.

Of course, the Christ Being entered into the body(s) of Jesus of Nazareth and died as Man but to be clear; there were no karmic residues of the Christ Being that walked the earth; no karma to live out.

And the Christ Being does not reincarnate but is within each earthly man and the earth itself, as world and cosmic spirit. Christ, his manifestations and accompanying knowledge is only beginning to be gained, within the souls of all men ......

The Egyptian cultures you have spoken fondly of before venerated the dung beetle and saw it as a symbol of renewal and creation. Sure, they might not believe in reincarnation as one, but they certainly saw it as an important element of resurrection.

Admittedly, "scarab" sounds better to our ears than "dung beetle", but we live pampered lives.

And while I have no issues with setting reincarnation as animals aside as a belief that is supported by less than stellar evidence, I don't see how it is somehow a worse belief than salvation or paradise.

What kind of evidence would curb your skepticism about reincarnation?

That's a good question. Some kind of measurable observation to support the idea of a transfer of "something" and that could be predicted would be nice, or at the very least some sort of qualified conjecture as to what kind of phenomena takes place. Something better than "it happens" would be a good start.

I'm sure I'll get accused of being materialistic, skeptical and blind to the truth, but the fact of the matter is that we simply have never observed conscience or minds without very measurable physical phenomena accompanying them. I have always failed to see why this is so controversial to point out. Physical phenomena doesn't make the universe any less wondrous.

Sorry for derailing the thread but has there been any update on Lawrence Krauss?

I think the correct term here would be rerailing.

I understood that ASU suspended him and banned him from campus while undertaking an investigation.

I personally doubt we'll see much reaction other than that of the employer. These cases are notoriously tough in criminal courts and very demanding in civil courts. Since ASU hired him even though he had a history with similar accusations in the past (as I've understood it), they're probably under high pressure to do this right. They've got to avoid being liable from legal action towards them as an employer / educational institution. That sounds cynical, but it's the practical reality. My experience with employers / employee cases is that there is usually a genuine drive to do right, but the law is sort of the line in the sand they really want to avoid crossing.

Of course reincarnation and karma can't be "seen" with the senses but they can be comprehended via thinking and so i'll try , marginally.

Man is body, soul and spirit and even here we can go into comprehension but a man dies :

He first experiences the episode of "my life flashed before my eyes ". this has happened to those who have had near death experiences but not all who have had these experiences, of course. This episode is one's memory flashing in pictures in which time becomes space. I believe there is more but I'd hope to give a pointer. this period last about 2-3 days and lasts about as long as one would normally be able to stay awake without sleeping.

These perceptions or pictures are in the process of expanding into the cosmic body of pictures known, in the approach I am presenting as the "etheric body" of the cosmos . Yes, Man has an "etheric body" which can be subscripted while alive , during sleep.This body is also known as the "life body" or "formative force body" for when a man dies his corpse becomes apparent and loses "form' and the power that keeps the physical body together is this "etheric body" or body of "life".

It should be apparent that the corpse does not have the ability to give "life" and therefore, intellectually, one can reason to an outer power which gives the human physical "life": and this is this "etheric body". One characteristic is that this "body" is always in motion .

To be clear, the Michelson Morley experiment was designed to find the "ether" but it asked for a "material ether" which will never be found for of course, it is not material.

A man sleeps and in this all passions, desires, sensibilities, thoughts,wills are not present and so one can see that the sleeping man contains an "etheric body" and "physical body", this "physical body transformed into a higher realm of existence by those bodies above itself. the physicality, of mineral existence, doesn't gain a higher level of abilities but is ensconced within a realm which holds it "in life" until at death we can clarify the activities of the mineral existence or nature.

The etheric body, gradually through this 2-3 days, leaves the spirit/soul man but the individual man does keep "fruits" of this existence before it( etheric body) is released as a cosmic sacrifice into the cosmic ether.

Returning to beginnings we are able to "see" that this "picture flashing has to be "sensed" by something and that is our spirit/soul being who is being released from the earthly sensibilities and enters into an inner cosmic sensibilities. I obviously use the word "sense" in another manner as a man's senses , as we know them, sight, sound, taste, etc. are lost due to this loss of physicality.

This is the interesting part of language for in these times most ,if not all words, have taken upon themselves a sense laden basis and so the words, in this type of matter are more so "pointers" and call for some measure of comprehension released from what one calls "matter".

And so the excarnated man now enters the "soul world" as a soul/spirit being. This is the realm where moral experience lives, as does the workings of karma.

I'll stop here , for a while, as the above is plenty and I plan to come back and clarify the "soul realm" that a man goes through after death.

There is something better. It's not evidence. It's speculation, but its appealing speculation.

If the universe or multiverse is infinite in time, and we can't conclusively rule it out it's not, there's no special reason that it couldn't recur. That's to say that - in infinite time theres no special reason that the arrangement of matter that was present upon your birth couldn't recur. Meaning - you'd be born again. Combine this notion with the idea that being unconcious/dead = no experience of time passing, and what you get subjectively is the experience of dying, followed immediately by the experience of being born. Even though, an entire infinity of time has passed, objectively.

Understand this first, and then consider whether there's an arrangement/universe where you - as simply an experiencer (no other transferrence) - could be born to a different mother and father...to a different species....

Thank you, tame_deuces.

Trying to hit the point in this thread about source of morals or at least display its inner workings with relation to karma. Man after death experiences an expansion of being such as he expands into the cosmos which is more that he expands into subsequent realms. , and in this case the "realm of soul".

In this soul realm there is a particular expression of ridding the soul of all traces of the earthly . This is the region of "burning desire" . A man without his physical body has not lost his desires, passions, and other earthly effects which again, are only sated by a physical body.

An example would b a gourmand who has an excessive desire for the taste of food which goes beyond the needs of the soul as earthly inhabitant. This desire is within the soul and the man experiences "burning desire" for this sensation which cannot be fulfilled. The burning suffering he then goes through "purifies the spirit/soul being and he "demands this purification" until he is released from the desires of the earthly body.

It should be noted that this type of "release" or "purification" is demanded by the soul and of course the possibilities are multitudinous as to a particular man as soul/spiritual being to which this suffering comes about. `

It should be noted that we here speak of "an excessive" desire which needs sated but the idea is that activities , spirit dedicated, are the balancing act for right desires, so to speak. Not all desire is wrong, so to speak, but balance would seem to be in order as we speak from the center of the earth or from the center of the earth, ala Dostoevsky.

During the earthly life the human being has formed relationships with other humans and they can be of a sympathetic or antipathetic nature. In the case of a deed which nay harm another, as an example, this act is relived within the soul world ; the soul/spiritual human experiences what he has done to others , good or bad.

There is a progression and experiencing one's effects upon others proceeding from the time of death back into childhood. We feel and experience what the other felt and experienced. During this time which lasts approximately 1/3 of the lifetime of the soul karmic relationships are formed.

If a man dies at the age of 72 then life in this realm lasts about 24 years. Punch a man in the snoot and the experience is felt in all intensity by the perpetrator of the act. This may or may not call for a karmic compensation but in no way should one consider that he gets to punch the other guy in the snoot in the next life.

The pugilist may have been overcome by an extreme emotion of hate and in an uncontrollable urge lashed out and in this case the karmic balance is experienced in the next life or future lives in order that the two men may come to a reconciliation and even to the gaining a strength in management of said feelings. The possibilities are endless but are for the improvement of the soul as he passes into the next earthly life.

I've given this tale previously but I see it as clarifying:

In a feudal age which I would expect to be around the 11th century of our times a feudal lord prepared his men to travel in order to wage war against a neighboring state. this was not an unusual matter during those day and they sprung up and left their barony as warriors, the nature of those times....

Time past and the lord with a depleted army returned to his land holdings only to find his castle and feudal state occupied by another ruler. Because of the dearth of possibilities the deposed ruler had to become a serf on this , the new rulers state. This was not taken easily.

At night the deposed ruler and what was left of his men would build a bonfire and hurl invectives at the new ruler stating in no uncertain terms as to what they would do to him if when they of course became strong again. But this did not come to pass and both men died, in their time.

Fast forward to the 19th century living during tose time was a German Jew of extreme intellectuality and a rich man's son. they became close friends, even within a bond of Love, and this rich man's son whose name was Engels was a friend , confidant and benefactor of the other ,Karl Marx.

Whenever Karl Marx was in need, and often was,his friend Fredrick Engels was there to counsel and support his closest of friends. One could see love manifesting the two men, whose history is known to many.

Yes, the deposed ruler was Karl Marx in another life and Fredrick Engels was the man who had deposed him., a karmic bond lived through.

Man has not always experienced reincarnation and karma and there will be a time when it ceases as he progresses so as to live within the spiritual world in full consciousness which is the mission one carries from life to life.

To finish, because this realm to which I have given only the barest outline, a feeble echo of the inner working of this realm is not only a preparatin for further earthly lives but sll that man carries of the earth must be left at the borders of this realm in order for the soul/spirit being of man to progress on into higher realms of the spiritual world. He cannot carry his karma or faults into the next realm and in sense will be left at the doorstep, for no transgressions can be carried any further.

He progresses until the limits of the cosmic realm, through the homes of higher beings who have a higher consciousness just as he was ensconced within the soul realm, a realm of higher beings with their particular consciousness who have effected the purification of Man. Man goes through these realms and returns, picking up his karma upon return, so to speak. The time period is approximately 800 years between lives but is variable and related to the human and cosmic needs.

To satisfy some, please read up the hierarchical beings or angelic beings who are above men and their work in the ennoblement of the human soul/spirit being. The religions are(were) aware in some measure but we have lost that consciousness to realize that we are with a divinity and we are an expression of the divine as we gain these abilities as we progress, and know exactly who, what and where we are .

This is weak but its all I can do now ;I am hopeful it may have shed some light.

Sean Carroll has taken a swing at philosophy and has coined the term Poetic naturalism to encompass his view. He talks about all of the things itt - and more - and I'd recommend it to those interested.

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

I like that.

tame_deuces thoughts on Christianity in the US are the most intelligent that I've heard expressed.

People believe in God perhaps because it is to their strength to fit in a hierarchy. When people say they would be lost without God, they are quite serious, because it interferes with everything else that's lower on the hierarchy. The belief in God is one step high on the chain of command as the nation state of birth, which is one step higher than numerous other organizations under that. Without this sense of structure, people feel entirely lost and disillusioned.

This is why many atheists argue, essentially, that God is a terrible King, and our organization is stronger without him. It's tough to believe in an organization while disbelieving in its leadership, which is why democracy is popular, because it allows you to do exactly that.

Democracy is popular, also, because in theory at least, it enables majority interest to steer the ship.

Whether majority interest happens to be populist or important is largely irrelevant. A ship of fools is a ship of fools, however you cut it. Wherever it goes, entertainment is guaranteed. And that's all you can really ask for, in the context of absurdity, AKA existence.

Needs more love .

ASU's investigation concludes Krauss grabbed a woman's breast at a 2016 conference and he has been fired as director of the Origins Project.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/...woman-s-breast